


idle hands/devils work

by glassy_light



Category: The Witch (2016)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, yeet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassy_light/pseuds/glassy_light
Summary: Thomasin was conceived in sin; she was born into the devil's arms. She finds her family in the woods, but there are two sides to her new life.
Relationships: Thomasin & Black Philip, Thomasin & The Witch Coven (The Witch)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	idle hands/devils work

Thomasin’s new life allowed her new pleasures. Her hands were often idle; she lived in peace and leisure. She was cloaked in fine fabrics, ate honey and fruits from far off lands. The Devil was generous, one that made her old life, even back in England, look gaunt. 

After the fire where she swam in the smoke with her new family, as she walked in the wood, her master's voice sounded up from the earth. It was a rough noise like cartwheels on cobble, or the sparking strike of a blacksmiths hammer, sliding over words like a dragged leg. Thomasin could not see him in the dark, but he was there, watching from an inky stand of poplars. His eyes were cold in the moonlight, teeth like milk behind thin lips. 

Like the book was spoken into existence, her new home was, too. The ground at her feet split open, and from the soft clay mouth sprung a low stone cottage, dripping water, wet from birth. There was glass in the windows, twinkling brightly in the pre-dawn, and her eyes pricked with tears.

Her sisters brought her things, offered company. Tacey brought red apples in winter, and Huldah, whose acorn-brown hair flickered through Thomasin’s memory of the settlement, made dresses from supple velvets and glossy silks. Greta knew to form the sounds of letters on a page; taught her with a patient hand how to write them. From the start these women were different from her family, who never knew her as her sisters did, never cared to. She grieved them and moved on, as best she could (Caleb’s boyish face, the damp smell of a fresh grave, the croonings of baby Sam, the weight of her mother).

“Come,” Athaliah extended a long-fingered hand. The skin there was puckered with red scars from fire tending, and Thomasin took it. Athaliah was older, or younger, and had a face with distant eyes always fixed on something just beyond. hair was braided with flowers, and they lay in the cool grass like contented cats. In their midnight world, the water rippled with electric white reflections, and the owls called out in familiar voices. Athaliah showed her how to shift her form, to unlatch her heart and melt her bones, and how to uproot doubt when it grew.

The Devil first visited her when spring broke (after all, spring is the Devil’s season. Every birth is a death; another sheep in his flock). She opened her door to find him leaning in the archway, cavalier hat tipped over his pale face, splaying shadows over it. Thomasin was not keen to look away: took in the veins showing through parchment-skin in blues and greens, squinted to make out burning coals of goat-eyes. 

“Father! Guess what sister-mine has shown me!” Her own face was split like firewood in a smile. Sandy hair was braided back in a crown, and from the pit of the house Athaliah sang out, “ _...eats the lions from the lion’s den,_ ” and then shrieked in pleased laughter.

“Canst thou tell me what it is? Must ye make thine father guess?” But the Devil, for all his biting tone, was smiling too. He kept his flock fat and happy, and was pleased to see his dark thumbprint on their souls. Thomasin was his favorite lamb. 

“Look,” and she shifted into a fawn, dappled and wide-eyed. She lept clumsily from the door into the tall grass, kicking up her heels. And then she melted into herself again.

He nodded, and spoke a few hissed words with a forked tongue. The wet clay of the earth again shaped itself to his will, and a dairy cow with soft eyes stood wobbly-legged beside her. Thomasin shrieked in joy, and reached out to stroke it’s soft muzzle.

“Such cunning tricks! Clever child,” he patted her head, the lace of his shirtsleeve tickling her face. When Thomasin opened her eyes again the place he stood was hollow.

Athaliah was crouched behind her, yawning wide. “A fine gift.” Then she stood and walked out into the wood, a mess of limbs and hair. Thomasin watched her go with fondness in her heart, and then lead her beast to the empty goat shed, fresh with soil.

* * * 

Her new life brought with it new terrors. Athaliah had her by the wrist; pulled her closer to the scene. She had brought Thomasin through the woods, dragging her over moss and dead leaves, until they were in a moonlit field. The other sisters were there, all watching as the oldest her to her chest a small bundle. Samuel danced through her mind. 

“Would thee to hurt it? The child must be not of a years age…” She felt her argument go slack in her throat as Athaliah twisted her arm to bring her nearer still.

“Our Master has been good to thee, but ye think to deny him of souls? That child went unbaptised; a soul that is promised to him,” Athaliah gritted it out through a locked jaw, looking past Thomasin. The infant was being held now, held down against a flat plinth of slate. Tacey was fanning a bowl of burning herbs with her hand, letting the incense smoulder in the air. Thomasin felt dizzy.

“Here, sister,” a tall woman with red hair held out a sprig of yarrow, plucked from a bundle she had in her arms. Her hand fixed Thomasin’s hair, brushing it behind her ear, before she disappeared. A large fire was being stoked, with hot coals brought from fireplaces and wood gathered on the new moon.

It was all flesh in the firelight, and in a desperate clutch at sanity Thomasin moved to sit in the grass; the cool of it against her skin was a comfort. She felt like she was running a fever. She sat on the fraying edge of the group. The fire was building. Soon something would happen.

They drew her in, and Thomasin did her best not to cry out when she caught the glint of a knife blade in the twilight. The purpling sky reflected lavender as it was raised. The child made no sound as it was cut. She closed her eyes against the gore, and tried to breath steady. To forget the weight on her neck.

Blood was oozing over the stone and her sisters dipped their fingers into it like greedy children, like they were reaching for something holy. They were murmuring something foreign, and when Huldah carried over the mortar she tried no to listen to the wet cracks.

Earthenware jars of mugwort and valerian salves were brought out, and somewhere she could feel her hands digging into them, rubbing them onto her hands and face and neck as an excuse for not touching the blood.

The mess was being worked into a thick, bloody grease, and the ungent was foamed between hands and streaked across eyelids. She watched as Tacey’s eyes rolled back under the stars, and tried not to let the seam of her understanding burst open. There was a ragged hole in her where she thought she buried her family, and she could feel the hidden guilt bubbling up.

And as quickly as she had been led there, Athaliah emerged from the crowd. Thomasin’s hands hung limply by her side and she watched remotely as a bony hand reached out. Her eyes closed reflectively. It was cold and thick, and left her scared to open them as it ran along her cheeks. Athaliah was about to pull her hand away, but Thomasin held tight to her arm. 

There was a stand of poplar on the rise above the clearing, and something dark and pleased was pacing along it, looking at the flickering firelight and the contorting figures. A mantle of horns sprouted heavy from his brow, and the figure, cloven-hoofed, picked his leisurely way through the night alive with havoc.

**Author's Note:**

> The prayer at the start is an altered version of one found in the Book of Common Prayer. The original reads, "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever."


End file.
